7 Greatest Team17 Commodore Amiga games of all time

Team17 started out as a company called 17-Bit Software, working on Amiga software. In 1990, a developer called Team 7 approached 17-Bit to publish their game. The two combined into Team17 and published their first game, Full Contact for the Amiga. In 1995, they partnered with Ocean Software to co-publish their games worldwide. This partnership would lead to Worms, their biggest success. With Ocean, it was their first multiplatform release releasing for all major platforms at the time. Since then, the company and its development partners have continued to create great games spanning all genres that deliver maximum fun to players. Today, the Company employs over 320+ people across 7 locations in 4 countries. Anyway, enough history here are the 7 greatest Team17 Commodore Amiga games of all time!

Worms is one of those rare games that steps past all of the high profile multimedia fluff and concentrates on delivering what gamers really want. The Amiga version was actually the first version released. Programmer Andy Davidson created Worms in Blitz Basic and was published first as an Amiga-exclusive game. The game was ported over to MS-DOS, Sony playstation and many other computer platforms. Though the strategy in Worms is pretty basic, it’s involved enough to attract even the most seasoned gamer. The basic concept of the game is simple; anywhere from two to four teams must take part in an epic, turn-based battle across a large war-zone with the last team standing being victorious. Deadly missiles are flying in every direction and the ground all around you is crumbling away under the pressure of multiple explosions. There’s a lot of weapons available – the standard ones as bazookas which is affected by the wind settings and gravity and grenades. The others include a Fire Punch, dynamite, air strikes, and utilities such as ropes and girders. They also steal things from other games like street fighter as you can perform the Haduken or shoryuken. There are many styles of terrain, ranging from forests and deserts to Candy land and the moon. Shots leave craters in the ground, and complex tunnels can be formed. All in all, an absolutely engrossing game. Get yourself four teams with four worms each on one screen-sized battle field, and just start shooting!

Body Blows is a title born out of the quality of the Amiga port of Street Fighter II. Upon the Amiga port of SFII being released Team 17 realized that the port was of low quality and this now left them with a hole in the Amiga market that, with the right game, they could exploit. Body Blows was the result of this. The game was released for AGA and non-AGA Amiga models in 1993. A 2 player mode is available and players can choose between 11 characters. Designed specifically for the Amiga, it supports 256 color graphics, 4 channel stereo music, speech and sound effects. Fighters are controlled with one-button joysticks, with special moves triggered pressing fire and pushing in a certain direction, or holding fire for a few seconds. Fighting takes place in seven different areas, including the Shaolin Temple and Inja Cavern, along with some additional scenes such as a Russian Laboratory and a building site.

Project X is one of the finest, if not the finest shoot-’em-up available on the Amiga during the 90s. It’s got mouth-watering graphics, and except for the bonus stages, all the graphics are in 32 colours. Sound-wise, your ears are going to take a real battering. The plot is about some crazy scientists messing around with bio-mechanical experiments using some pretty powerful X-rays when they created some massive mutated insect-like droids. Of course, things don’t run true to plan – the insects not only survive but thrive. Their computer intelligence circuits are corrupted and they set off seeking revenge. You work for the space federation, and you’re assigned to deal with the mutant insects – surprise, surprise! Your mission is to fly to Ryxx, in the heart of the station where the evil insects have made their lair, and blow the whole thing sky high.

Superfrog is a platformer created for the Amiga by Team 17 and released initially in 1993. he game’s premise is that you’re a magic Prince, complete with a bride-to-be. The wicked witch has turned the prince into nothing more than a little green frog. The frog found a strange bottle, and drank from it, and became Superfrog. You control the Superfrog with your joystick, and hop around trying to collect pieces of fruit, coins, crowns, gems, and various items, as well as the ubiquitous Lucozade bottles which give the frog his super status. Collection of coins determines when you can leave a specific level, since each level has a toll, so you can’t just find the exit and leave. You have to work at collecting the prerequisite number of coins first. The game itself consists of 6 levels, each split into a number of distinct stages. The game gets progressively more difficult as you play, starting out very easy, and ending up being rather difficult and frustrating, as do most platform games. Without this difficulty hike, such games would be too easy and hence boring. Many of the levels have secret areas, tunnels, and holes in the ground. There are also caches of coins hidden behind objects, which can prove tricky to find. You can also jump on some baddies to kill them. Superfrog can also acquire frog-wings in its travels, which enable the frog to stay in the air a bit longer after it has jumped. However, the amount of time you can stay up in the air is limited, and you always fall back down to the ground, no matter how many times you press the button to flap the wings.

Super Stardust Is probably the most handsome-looking Amiga game released in the 90s. The 256-colour graphics; the rendered visuals; the stunning tunnel sequences; the amazing ray-traced alien craft. Assisted by a plethora of hardcore breakbeats and some of the hardest and nastiest noises pound at your ear-drums while you maniacally bash away at your fire-button. The tunes are diverse and range from the soft (played between levels) to the seriously harsh (belted out while you fight the end-of-level guardian). It’s hard to put into words what the actual tunes sound like, but imagine a dangerous concoction of the Prodigy, Underworld and Orbital and you’re getting close. The explosions are a sight to behold and the tunnel sequences (of which there are four) are breathtaking, if occasionally swearword-inducing. After six levels, you get to zoom through an extraordinary-looking tunnel at a speed Luke Skywalker would baulk at, while attempting to shoot asteroids, avoid death bolts and collect pick-ups. In the end Super Stardust it is the only game to come close to beating the original Asteroids released in 1979 for sheer addiction and playability.

Alien Breed II is a top-down science fiction shooter somewhat inspired by the movie Aliens in terms of plot and atmosphere. Moving around an alien-infested complex in a top-down view, you must at all times keep an eye not only on your energy level but also be conservative with ammunition. Though you will find new ammo cartridges strewn around the levels, they are consumed quickly by respawning aliens that may come crawling out of the floors and walls when you least expect it. On the floors, you will also find keys for passing through locked doors. Keys must also be used with care, or you may find yourself locked out of a room containing the remaining keys that you will need in order to complete the level. Other doors are one-way and will electrocute you if you try to pass it in the other direction. Other major bonuses found on the floor are emergency kits for restoring your health, and credits. The credits come in handy when you find an Infotex terminal. There, you can access information about your current mission and your vital statistics, as well as buy supplies such as ammunition, weapons, and keys.

Overdrive features four different style vehicles, five terrains, 20 tracks and eight different characters each with their own unique style. There are four different game modes to choose from: Arcade, practice, trails and two-player. The single player arcade mode is the main one and the one that the game is based around. You have four different cars to control in Overdrive, ranging from a GP to a Super sports car. All have their own strengths and weaknesses, as you would expect. The controls are very responsive, and it goes without saying that it’s incredibly playable. What makes it so tough is the speed. Everything just whips along at such a rate that it’s often hard to anticipate corners, and you end up careering all over the shop. Overdrive lets you link up two machines via the null modem cable. The game also contains five excellent pieces of music to race to and there is a fair smattering of sound effects and samples. Team 17’s racer is one of those products that steadily grows on you. At first it seems very complicated, but as you progress you get really engrossed and find yourself totally addictive. It is also perhaps one of the toughest race games if you want a tough yet exciting arcade racer released in the 90s, you need look no further than Overdrive!

news source: lemonamiga.com / image source: Team17 & DemonHellRaiser

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